T.K. lines up to take the kickoff. It’s shaping up as a very rough day.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

T.K. and Eddie Hougart share a pedicab home from practice.

The cabman, unaccustomed to pedaling around such massive specimens of humanity, poops out noticeably on the uphill grades, but compensates by picking up an alarming head of steam on the way down, a dichotomy of motion which imbues the ride with all the stomach lurching characteristics of a trip on a roller coaster.

His passengers are much too fatigued to complain, or even to care, for that matter.

Scrunched down in the seat to keep his head from brushing the cab’s canvas top, Eddie polishes off his usual after-practice, pre-dinner snack, a hundred capsules of protein supplement, fifty steroid tablets. T.K. catnaps.

The cabman pulls over to the curb outside a shabby building on Montgomery Street. Ted Monreves, T.K.’s business agent, has his office here. The building was once a prestigious address, but prestige long ago moved out to the suburbs with everyone else. As T.K.’s popularity, and, by extension, Ted Monreves’ commissions, faded, they both found themselves marching in place, T.K. in time to a coach’s cadence, Monreves to the bay of bill collectors. Neither has found a suitable way to change stride.

Monreves buzzed T.K. at home this morning to set up a meeting for after practice. Apparently, Monreves had arranged some sort of business deal for T.K. Although this shouldn’t have surprised T.K., after all that was Monreves’ job, it did. Aging quarterbacks weren’t getting the nod for endorsements, talk shows or lectures any more, only for a life’s worth of hell on a street every Sunday.

“Want to come up?” T.K. asks Eddie. “We can grab some beers after.”

Eddie shrugs. “Might as well. Beats going home to the old lady.”

T.K. pays off the cabman and climbs out.

“Ain’t you T.K. Mann?” asks a small boy wearing a Minutemen jersey with 69, Harv Matision’s number, on it. Emulating the professionals, the boy has mock scars painted on his neck and both wrists, a popular faddish affectation lately, even among boys well into their teens.

“Sure am,” admits T.K., expecting to be asked for an autograph.

“Bang, you’re dead,” screams the boy, pointing both hands, index fingers extended, in T.K.’s direction. “That’s what Harv Matision’s gonna do to you this season. He’s gonna shoot you dead.”

“Thanks for the warning,” says T.K., turning his back on the boy.

“Bang,” shouts the boy after him, “bang, bang, bang, bang.”